“Where’s he going?”
“Did he see us?”
These were the questions asked in turn by Ned, Bob, and Jerry, as they slipped along in the darkness, following the man with the crooked nose, whom they had so unexpectedly seen.
“Maybe he came to laugh at us for the way the tables were turned on us, the time we tried to catch him in the farmer’s barn,” suggested Jerry.
“He’s come a long distance out of his way for a little thing like that,” commented Ned. “I’m inclined to think he came here to meet some one. After Bob spoke I saw the fellow look at his watch as though impatient because of an appointment not kept.”
“Well, where’s he going now?” asked Bob, repeating his question.
“I guess it’s up to us to find out,” replied Jerry.
“Maybe he’s trying to lead us into an ambush,” suggested Bob.
[198]
“Cut out the dime-novel stuff,” advised Jerry, with a low laugh. “I’ve got a better explanation than that, and the real one.”
“What is it?” asked Ned.
“It’s our black faces,” returned the tall chum. “If that crooked-nosed man—Jim Waydell the farmer called him, though it may not be his right name—if he saw us at all, which he probably did, he takes us for negroes. That’s why he isn’t worried. He thinks we’re camp roustabouts, and that we don’t know anything about him.”
“I believe you’re right!” exclaimed Ned, after a moment’s thought. “We do look like a trio of colored chaps, and that’s why he isn’t getting worried and taking it on the run. Say, it’s a lucky thing we are this way.”
“Maybe,” assented Jerry. “Now mind your talk. Do the negro dialect as well as you can, fellows, and we may find out something about this mysterious Crooked Nose. If we can bring about his arrest for robbing the Frenchman, or for setting the fire, which Mr. Cardon seemed to think he did, it will be a good thing for us and Cresville. So pretend we are colored men with a few hours off.”
The boys walked as near as they thought safe to the solitary suspect, who was trudging down the road alone. When they spoke aloud the motor boys simulated the broad negro tones, talking[199] and laughing as they had often heard the camp teamsters and servants do, for the place was overrun with good-natured, if rather shiftless, colored men.
As for “Mr. Crooked Nose,” as the boys sometimes called him, he seemed to pay little attention to those who were following him. Either he took them for genuine colored men, and, as such, persons who could have no interest in his movements, or he was indifferent to the fact that they might be some of the minstrel players.
What the man’s object was in coming to camp, when the farm on which he was supposed to work was several miles away, could only be guessed at. But the boys hoped to find it out.
They were approaching the camp confines, and were debating whether they could risk going beyond them, when the crooked-nosed man turned into a field, and made his way toward a deserted barn. This was one that had been on a farm when the land had been taken by the government for Camp Dixton.
“Maybe he’s going to sleep there,” suggested Bob. “Or perhaps he is going to meet some one there.”
“Keep quiet,” advised Jerry. “We’ll walk on down the road, as if we didn’t care what he did. Then we’ll circle back and sneak up to the barn. Maybe we can find out something about him.[200] Strike up a song, so he’ll think we’re what we pretend to be.”
They began humming the chorus of one of the songs they had sung in the minstrel show, and so passed on down the road. There was a moon, and the movements of the crooked-nosed man could easily be observed. He struck off across the vacant lots toward the barn, not even looking back at the singing boys, who did, indeed, have the appearance of negroes.
Proceeding far enough beyond a turn of the road to be hidden from sight, Ned, Bob, and Jerry waited a few minutes, and then turned back. This time they did not sing, and they talked only in whispers.
Cautiously they approached the barn, looking for any sign of a light or any movement that would indicate the presence of the mysterious man or of a person who had come there to meet him, or with whom he had expected to keep a rendezvous.
“‘All quiet along the Potomac,’” quoted Bob, in a low voice.
“Well, have it quiet here, too,” whispered Jerry. “We may discover something, and we may not. But there’s no use in giving ourselves away. He may get angry if he finds we’re not what we seem to be, and knows that we’ve been following him. Go easy now!”
[201]
The young soldiers finally stood in the shadow of the barn and listened intently. At first they heard nothing but the rattle and flap of some loose pieces of wood.
“He’s gone!” murmured Ned.
“Listen!” advised Jerry.
Even as he spoke they all heard the low murmur of voices. And the voices were those of men.
“We’ve got to get nearer, where we can hear better,” whispered Jerry to his chums. “It’s around this way.”
He led the way to the side of the barn that was in the deepest shadow, and presently they came to a stop below a small window. The glass had been broken out of it, and through the aperture came the tones of the voices more distinctly. One said:
“When did he say he was coming?”
“He promised to be here to-night,” was the answer.
Of course the boys, not having heard the crooked-nosed man’s voice, did not know which was his, nor which was his companion’s.
“To-night; eh?” came in sharp tones. “Well, he didn’t come, and you tell him I want to see him, and see him bad. I’m tired of hanging around here without any money, and I’m working like a dog on that farm.”
“That’s Crooked Nose,” whispered Bob.
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